The “Hallway Track” is where it’s going on at DrupalCon!

Do you have a favorite restaurant with a “secret” menu item? Well, DrupalCon has its own secret. And, I’m spilling the beans. If you ask any DrupalCon veteran, what the best thing about the events are, they’ll say, “The Hallway Track”. Huh?

What is the “Hallway Track”?

The “Hallway Track” is the space around and between official schedule items. This might be in the actual hallway, in the sponsor floor, at the parties, or even in a taxi ride to the airport.

Space like this lets serendipity happen. You might get bored and join a conversation and make new friends. You might hear of a problem, and think of a new business idea. Or…

Stories from the Hallway Track

I reached out to several friends to get hear some stories about their experiences in the hallway track

Nikki Flores tells about how she ran into a colleague at DrupalCon and became fast friends!

I had worked with her for almost 2 years, had seen pictures of her family and her dog and her vacations. We had always been connecting weekly and sometimes twice a week on our teleconferences. I never saw her in person until she called my name from across the hall at DrupalCon. When we saw each other, we were so excited because we recognized each other's faces! 

Carlos Ospina tells the story about how he took his son to DrupalCon, and that led to the genesis of the IXP program.

I wanted my son to understand why I love this community so much, so we flew him out to Seattle. I told him I knew a lot of people there, but since it was contribution day, there would not be much time to socialize.

After COVID, he agreed to join us again for Portland in 2022. The Sunday before the event, we met some friends for breakfast. I spotted someone I thought I recognized and mentioned it. My son teased me, saying it was probably just because I think I know everyone at DrupalCon.

We sat down, and in the middle of breakfast Eduardo Telaya walked by our table. I called out to him, and he came over. We hugged, and suddenly we were no longer just five people having breakfast. A couple of other friends stopped by to say hello, and our table grew. My son looked at me and said, “So maybe you really do know everyone at DrupalCon.”

I think that moment stuck with him. When we started talking about career options, he agreed to give Drupal a try and came with us to Pittsburgh in 2023 to look for a job. After all, Dad knows everyone, right?

Unfortunately, that was when the hiring slowdown was becoming clear. It was the first time the Drupal Association organized a job fair, and we attended. At one point I had to step away to take a call, and my son did great on his own. He introduced himself, talked to people confidently, and put himself out there. But there were no real opportunities for someone in his position. He had just completed DrupalEasy, had no professional experience, and no background in computer science.

That experience led to conversations with Anilu, and from those conversations the IXP Program was born. It started as a way to help my son get a foothold. He has since moved on from Drupal to explore something different, but the program lives on. We are now approaching 1,750 contribution credits awarded, and six participants have gone through the program.

What began as something personal turned into something that helps others enter the community.

Mike Gifford tells several stories about how he met friends and started his journey to be an Accessibility Maintainer for Drupal Core.

I’ve had so many great conversations with people who have inspired me, challenged me, and made me laugh in the hallway of DrupalCons. Over coffee, lunch or just while trying to charge a device, leaning against the wall.

The first story that came to mind was trying to find Eriol Fox in DrupalCon Vienna. I am not sure what we were using to message each other, but there was a large delay between sending and receiving messages. Then there is the challenge of actually finding each other in these crazy conference centers. Anyways, we had a good time chatting, but she also pointed me to some folks that she had connected with in Japan. I was going to be going there and wanted to find some open source connections while there.

I think it was in DrupalCon Atlanta that I had great conversations with Stephen Mustgrave & Stephen Musgrave. We were all in slightly different breakout groups. I had confused the two of them only a month or two ago and remembered connecting with them and verifying that they are indeed not the same person.

I can’t remember when I ran into Mark Gifford, but it was in some hallway, where we talked about me mostly grabbing the @mgifford in so many new social platforms before he could.  I guess he has some right to them.

I actually started contributing to Drupal’s accessibility after a hallway chat. It was some time before Drupal 7 was released, and I remember going up to Webchick and complaining about accessibility errors in Drupal. She turned around and suggested I could do something about it. I don’t know how many thousands of hours I’ve spent on fixing accessibility issues in Drupal since she made that suggestion. Thanks Angie.

Mike Anello intentionally avoided the assignment, but tells a great story about the contribution room!

Forget about the hallway - let’s talk about the contribution room track.

There’s no better way to learn something new and make meaningful personal connections than spending a few hours in a contribution room. There are a few Drupal events each year that I know I won’t be wasting any time listening to over-caffeinated Florida-based front-end developers rant at me about the future of front-end development. Instead, I arrive with an agenda to learn something new about some new Drupal thing by spending time in the contribution room helping to test, write documentation, or work on existing issues.

I can credit this method for supercharging my learning of single directory components, ECA, a good portion of the Drupal AI ecosystem, and more Views internals than I ever wanted (thanks, Lendude!)

At my first Drupal Dev Days (Ghent 2023, IIRC) one of my goals was to use my evolving PhpUnit test-writing skills to use in the contribution area. After talking with a few folks, I was introduced to Len Swaneveld, a core maintainer for the Views module. Len pointed me at a few potential issues to work on, and after reviewing a few of them, I settled on one that seemed like it was completable in a reasonable amount of time. What transpired over the next few weeks will be no surprise to anyone who’s ever worked on core Views code - nothing is simple.

But, the thing that I remember most about that issue is the time that Len spent with me (both in-person and online) mentoring me on some of the darker areas of the Views code base. It gave me an all-new perspective of the module as well as the challenges of maintaining it.

This process, and similar ones related to other areas of Drupal, I knew that I was improving my skills by learning from leaders in the community - all while I was helping them!

Perhaps the most rewarding part of it is the fact that after the event, a personal connection now exists - and it doesn’t feel forced. It is a perfectly natural thing to reach out to these new connections via email or Slack with a little, “it was great getting to know you a few weeks ago at Dev Days; I have a quick question for you…”

Networking is the reason for Drupal events - not presentations (sorry, presenters!)

Michael Richardson tells us how the hallway track led to the creation of DrupalCon Singapore!

For me it would be when I went to DrupalCon Lille with the wild idea of running something like a "DrupalCamp Asia", which would be focused on trying to get folks from all over the continent (and the Pacific) to connect together and share their Drupal stories, cultures, and experience for the first time in nearly 10 years.

Through the power of the hallway track in Lille, I was able to connect directly with sponsors, Drupal Association leadership, and regional community leaders, and over those few days the idea evolved into a fully fledged DrupalCon Asia with sponsors, organisers, and the support of the DA all aligned. What would have taken months to organise online was all put in place in just 3 days and a year later, DrupalCon Singapore was a massive success. I'm not sure that would have been possible without those first conversations half way across the world in Lille.

Baddý Breidert tells us how participating in the DrupalCon prenote led to multiple friendships!

My first DrupalCon was Amsterdam in 2014 and I remember going to that event not knowing anyone. During the Hallway Track I got to know MortenDK that introduced me to a lot of people and from that conference it always became a bit easier to attend DrupalCon. At DrupalCon Dublin 2016, Jam and others from the community invited me to join the pre-note which I gladly accepted. The pre-note always happened before the Driesnote and the purpose of the event was to entertain the keynote attendees and kick-off the conference. The show featured an Irish adventure theme, where the characters attempted to find a “pot of gold” while exploring the concept of “scope” in a  humorous, technical, and musical “infotainment” style.

Cristina Chumillas tells how she went outside of the conference to find a magical donut, and brought it back to share!

Soooo on the first DrupalCon in Portland after covid, the day after committing Claro and Olivero, with Lauri, we went for a quick adventure to find a famous doughnut with bacon and maple syrup. At Voodoo Doughnuts. 

Anyway, we were at the sprints and were working on Olivero issues, so by the time we left it was about to close. On the way it started raining A LOT and when we arrived they were closing and there were no more doughnuts. But since we were there we took the chance to get inside the shop and asked for it, and they still had one! So we bought it and ended up eating it with 8 people at the sprints.

JD Flynn perfectly wraps up the hallway track in his rendition.

To me, the hallway track is where the magical moments are found. It's where connections are made. It's where friendships begin. Sessions at events are amazing, and should definitely be attended. However, the real inspiration and sparks happen during spontaneous conversations that happen just because you bump into someone and start talking about this idea you've had or this bug you found. Before you know it, you're both sitting with your laptops out and building something together. That doesn't happen while sitting quietly in a session.

The "hallway" track isn't limited to just the hallway of the event's venue either. It carries over to the parties and the after parties where lifetime friendships and memories are formed. It's not an exaggeration to say that most of the people in my life who I consider good friends are good friends because of that spark that happened in the hallway, wherever that hallway might exist. It could be bonding over a drink, shared love of a type of food, randomly bumping into someone who looks familiar outside of the event, or picking the song at karaoke that gets everyone up and dancing. I owe some of the strongest relationships in my life, personally and professionally, to the hallway track.

Make space for the Hallway Track

As JD said, the hallway track is where the magic happens. But how do you find it?

You need to put yourself out there. Sit down at lunch tables where you don’t know anyone, and strike up conversations. Go to the event parties and talk to people in the lines at the bar. Join a trivia team with people that you don’t know! 

You might just end up with some serendipity of your own!